


it takes two

by allandnothing



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, SPOILERS for Cecil's secret!, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, because discussion of the potential of a kid fic just doesn't have the same ring to it, but not actually, healthy communication in a healthy relationship, we love to see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 18:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30110250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allandnothing/pseuds/allandnothing
Summary: Imagining Carlos as a father was a convenient fantasy. A private, convenient, and insofar improbable fantasy. Carlos had never mentioned anything about children of their own, he didn’t even ever ask him if he wanted children, but apparently, he had shown enough affection towards them to make an unrelated person casually comment on it, like it’s nothing, like it’s not suddenly turning Cecil’s world upside down.Did Carlos notice too? Has he been thinking of having a child, too, and simply never mentioned it? Has Steve ever told him how great of a father Cecil would be?This is getting less and less convenient by the second.A short series of events that led to the existence of Esteban.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	it takes two

**Author's Note:**

> literally everything I’ve ever written on this site boils down to me just having a hell of a bad time and cheering myself up with some cute gay stuff. this is a kid fic so you can imagine the kind of stress that I was under

_He would be such a great dad._

The thought sneaks up on Carlos completely out of the blue, without any warning, and it takes him a couple of seconds to properly process it. He blinks once, twice, waiting for it to dissipate, assuming it was only passing, but the thought resolutely stays where it is, unmoving. Gently demanding to be addressed.

For his part, Cecil doesn’t seem to be aware of his current predicament. He’s sitting on the other side of the table, foot propped on his knee, and staring with open awe at the handful of niecelet he’s holding against his chest. Sabine had complained about her lack of sleep, something about the baby keeping her up all night, and Cecil had helpfully offered them both as babysitters, given that it was his day off, and Carlos didn’t need to pop in by the lap until later in the afternoon. He has a sort of enthusiasm about this new little person that is hard to contain, and when left undirected it will often bounce around, making him babble nonstop about babies and uncle duties and elbow patched and eggplants, and Carlos, as usual, finds himself falling a bit more in love with each joyful outburst.

It’s natural, after all. Cecil is his husband, and he loves him, and therefore automatically loves anything that might make him happy. So it must be natural, he concedes, eyes carefully tracing the fragile shape of his ( _their_ ) niece’s head tucked against Cecil’s chest, for him to conclude that Cecil would make a great parent. It’s mere facts and logic. He knows how much Cecil loves Janice, how much he cares for her and put all of himself in supporting her and her mother before Steve came around, so the fact that he has a weak spot for children isn’t news to Carlos.

What is news, is that this thought, this completely rational and logical and, yes, scientific thought (is it or is it not based on evidence and theory, after all?) is doing something odd to his heart. The thought is expected, the sudden rush of dopamine that comes with it, not so much.

“Isn’t she the _cutest_?” his husband whispers, breaking him out of his reverie. He’s inclined towards Carlos, as much as he can given the infant in his arm, that is, and carefully lifting his index finger. Their niece’s hand is securely wrapped around it, her baby pink skin bright against Cecil’s lean, long finger, and his husband is beaming up at him like this is the best day of his life, “She’s so strong already! Oh, I bet she’ll be able to take on book rental in no time!”

Carlos suddenly finds himself unable to answer, a lump the size of a walnut holding a death grip on his throat, so he just chuckles and hopes that Cecil is too caught up in his infant related adulation to notice how creaky it sounds. He’s not sure what happened in the millisecond it took his brain to formulate that thought, but suddenly the image of Cecil cradling a baby so lovingly, and with so much care and affection, is just too much, and he has to rub at the psychosomatic ache he feels in his chest, right where his heart is beating noticeably faster than normal.

They had never discussed having children, not really. Cecil had made it pretty clear from the start how much he gets along with them, what with the utter adoration he feels towards his niece and soon happily shared by Carlos, but they never actually sat down to make specific plans for the rest of their lives, discussing every single milestone they wanted to go through. It’s not exactly easy to make proper plans when you live in a city where even the passage of time is something that could change on a whim, so they just let their lives build up to whatever next phase they would enter together, certain that it would be the right path. A grouping of moments connected by a shared personal experience of time, and all of that.

What Carlos is sure of, is that he never thought of children before Cecil. He comes from a fairly big family, the sort where Christmas dinner meant opening up the table in the dining room, running out of the good glasses from the nice set and having to give the younger cousins the spare ones, jackets upon jackets piled on some bed, an unspecified baby fast asleep in one of the rooms, and a random, older woman soundly kissing you on the cheeks while being vaguely aware that she might be your grandma’s sister’s cousin, probably. He usually was marooned with the job of keeping the little cousins at bay, during those family dinners, herding them outside to play when the adults decided to pull out the liquors and cards, and even back then, the thought of having children of his own never remotely bushed his brain.

He hadn’t planned to have children even when he first moved to Night Vale, back when science was above any secondary personal reason he might find himself to have. But yet again, he also hadn’t planned to marry in Night Vale, and to tie his existence– his one, ephemeral, but not insignificant existence– to the town he had only planned to study for a couple of years, so really that’s sort of a moot point.

The main point is that now, watching Cecil reach for the bottle of pre-heated milk, curling his arm around his niecelet with a familiarity that speaks of experience, feeding her without even a sound or a fuss from her, Carlos finds himself imagining the same scene but with a child of their own, and the ache in his chest intensifies.

It might be a heart attack, he hypothesizes. Cecil brushes a thumb against the baby’s forehead, and her thin, blonde hair turns black in Carlos’s mind, and her skin darker. It might.

* * *

_He would be such a great dad._

Cecil snaps out of his reverie with a blink, eyes unfocusing from Carlos and Janice to look at Steve, sitting beside him on the bench. His brother in law doesn’t seem to feel his gaze on him, doesn’t seem to have realized the weight of what he just said, and simply takes a sip of his iced tea, dark fingertips lightly gripping the straw with exaggerated elegance.

It’s a Saturday, and like all Saturdays it means family dinner for the Palmer-Calsberg household, and this Saturday, in particular, is especially important because Janice’s new wheelchair just arrived. It’s one of the new models, the ones who don’t need to be pushed and rely simply on upper body inclination to move, and everyone is enthusiastic about it. Steve and Cecil had immediately jumped up to the chance to help assemble it, and then promptly got into more of a mess than was realistically possible. As it turned out, a radio host and a bank vice president shouldn't exactly be the first choice when it comes to craftsmanship, so they had ended up leaving the job to the resident scientist. They eventually retired themselves to the porch swing, Cecil’s usually impeccable hair ruffled to a mess and Steve’s fingers blackened with gods only know what, and let the others handle it.

It had been a good ten minutes or so, Cecil has to admit. Just sitting down, sipping some iced coffee, watching his husband help his niece, both of them almost trembling with badly restrained excitement like a pair of bees, while his sister supervised over the instruction manual. Steve sometimes made the swing shake whenever he took a particularly heavy breath– he tends to do that, never seemed to have any problem alerting people of the vicissitudes of his respiratory system– but Cecil’s longer legs would balance it out, rocking his heels back and forth with carefree contentment.

And then Carlos had done something adorable, as is his usual, probably scrunched up his nose over something or shared a quick joke with Janice, and Steve had commented, completely unprompted, “He would be such a great dad.”

And then Cecil had blinked, moving his gaze to him– and yeah, we already covered that much.

“Sorry what?” he decides to settle on, ignoring the metaphorical twirl his stomach decided to give at Steve’s words. They had surprised him, that is all. He is surprised. 

Steve doesn’t seem to find anything wrong in what he said, and just lazily turns his head towards him. There’s a smudge of black over his nose, too, “I said he would be a great dad.”

“You mean Carlos?” Cecil carefully asks, purely to ignore the second twirl his stomach gives at that– and it certainly is weird. He should take note of that and point it out next time he goes to the doctor. It might be important, might be a symptom of some illness he’s unknowingly plagued with. _Hi yes, hello. Apparently my husband would make a good father, and my stomach became suddenly unhappy with the way gravity works, am I dying?_

Steve blinks at him, then looks back at the rest of their family, as if expecting there to be another man he might have been referring to, “Yeah, Carlos,” he says, slowly, but certain that Carlos is indeed the only person he could have been talking about. He sort of nods to himself, happy with his perception check, and goes back to his tea, evidently still unbothered by the seismic reaction his words are causing in Cecil’s abdomen.

The thing is. The thing is, it’s not the first time he has thought of that. This is not the first time that he has looked at Carlos and thought that he would be a great father. Sure, Cecil does have a soft spot for babies, so the thought might have occupied his mind more often than would be wise, but I mean, have you seen the guy? Carlos is the kindest, most good-hearted man to ever grace the earth. He is warm and bubbly and enthusiastic about everything, and so beautiful (so, _so_ beautiful), and it’s not insane to wonder, sometimes, how that warmth and bubbliness and enthusiasm might look like when directed at a child.

He doesn’t even have to imagine that hard, really, and has an example of it right under his very eyes right now. Carlos and Janice get on like a house fire– in fact, he’s sure that if left unsupervised they could very well set a house on fire, if they so saw fit– and it’s obvious that Carlos loves her so, beyond the feeling of responsibility he might feel for her as the niece of his husband. He cares for her with the sort of selfless, untied love that Cecil didn’t get the chance to show before Steve appeared in Abby’s life, and seeing them together warms an old, burdened part of his heart. And sure, he might have imagined what it would be like if it was not Janice, laughing with Carlos, but a child of their own, and really, can you blame him for it?

It doesn’t mean that he wants him and Carlos to have a child, necessarily. It’s just a logical conclusion to make. The next expected step in the syllogism in his brain.

It’s merely coincidental that right now, imagining Carlos with a toddler– and infant, even– holding a bundle of blond hair against his chest, makes his breath stutter, and the ice in his coffee ping against the glass cup with a badly restrained body shiver. Purely, merely coincidental.

Right?

“What makes you say that?”

His voice comes out hoarse, like someone who just braved a sand storm screaming for help all the way, and Steve looks at him with a little frown. He must have noticed the change in Cecil’s voice and posture, he’s observant like that, but doesn’t comment on it.

“Just– the way he behaves with Janice,” his voice his raspy too, but it’s natural for Steve, so it’s just comforting. It’s a very dad-like voice. He wonders if his is, too, “It’s clear that he loves her, and I’m not saying that just because he hangs out with her when you’re here,” Steve leans closer to him then, moving his tea to his other hand so that their glasses won’t clink together, and lowers his voice, like what he’s about to say is meant to be a secret, “He calls, you know? He often checks up on us, and on her, even when it’s not strictly necessary. He doesn’t feel any obligation, he just does it because he loves her,” his gaze leaves Janice, and swiftly meets Cecil’s eyes, “None of your ex-boyfriends ever did that.”

Cecil takes in a large enough breath that it’s his turn to shake the swing, and tries not to bristle. ‘Boyfriends’ is a generous term, a euphemism to refer to his past… involvements. He’s not crass enough to refer to them as hookups, but they were never more than brief, companionable interludes in what had (up until Carlos) been a fairly lonesome life. He wasn’t _lonely_ , per se, it was a simple and pragmatic matter: nobody ever interested him more than his job. Nobody ever showed themselves to be more important than his job, so he never saw a reason to pursue anything more than a temporal companionship with them. And, as it appears, nobody ever saw a reason to show interest in his family.

There’s no way Steve should be able to know this. It was before Carlos, before even Steve himself, if he can recall correctly. So that means Abby must have told him.

Steve seems to realize the effect of what he just said (this time, at least), and scoots closer to the armrest at his side, leaving a sizable space between him and Cecil, now tense like a violin string.

“I’m sorry, did I overstep–“

“No, no,” he runs his free hand through his hair, sticking it more up than it already is, and winces when his fingers get stuck on something slimy, no doubt a gift left from the mess the two of them made earlier, “It’s just– you’re sort of giving me an existential crisis right now, Steve.”

Imagining Carlos as a father was a convenient fantasy. A private, convenient, and insofar improbable fantasy. Carlos had never mentioned anything about children of their own, he didn’t even ever _ask_ _him_ if he wanted children, but apparently, he had shown enough affection towards them to make an unrelated person casually comment on it, like it’s nothing, like it’s not suddenly turning Cecil’s world upside down.

Did Carlos notice too? Has he been thinking of having a child, too, and simply never mentioned it? Has Steve ever told _him_ how great of a father _Cecil_ would be?

This is getting less and less convenient by the second.

Steve tilts his head at that, his lips pulled into a line, somehow still unaware of the power a single sentence seems to be having, “Right now? We don’t have one scheduled until Tuesday.”

From behind the fingers where he’s found momentary shelter, Cecil waves Steve off, letting him go back to his tea and his Janice-watching. This is barely making any sort of sense in Cecil’s head, there’s no way he’s going to be able to explain it to somebody else. Words seem to be failing him today.

Taking in a shaky breath, he lets his hand fall back from his face, and his misty eyes immediately find Carlos again though the sudden blurriness of them, like clockwork. He’s currently helping Janice moving from her old wheelchair to the new, keeping it still to avoid it rolling away with no conductor, and they seem about done enough for them to be able to approach again without making another mess, but he indulges in the moment a few more seconds. Carlos’s warm brown eyes, warmer than usual, his voice, gentle but cheerful, the way he reaches out a hand to help Janice, more naturally than he normally would with people who aren’t Cecil. 

He really would be a great father.

* * *

He doesn’t say anything to Cecil.

Distantly he’s aware that that’s not a healthy reaction to have, and that talking things out is the best solution to everything, but he finds it easier to regress back to old habits when dealing with something as destabilizing as, _hey, by the way, I think I might want a child with you?_

Avoiding emotional conversations used to be his default before Night Vale. He never felt particularly comfortable expressing his feelings out loud, preferring to either wallow in them or rationalize them depending on the need, and only saved important speeches and conversations for scientific discoveries, and not something as mundane and repetitive as emotions. Nobody ever seemed to have much of a problem with it, and just assumed that was who he was as a person, but after moving to this strange, beautiful town and turning on the radio to the voice of the local host so easily and openly stating that he had just fallen in love with him, he had no choice but to learn to talk things through. Cecil is a conglomerate of thoughts and feelings, constantly voicing them via an unstoppable but not uncomfortable not-so-inner monologue, and it became fairly easy for him to match him and answer in kind. He might not be as good of a talker, his voice is certainly not as good, regardless of how much Cecil likes to rave about his supposedly oaky tones, but he still finds it liberating to just express his feelings out loud, for once.

With that being said, this is not a feeling that lets itself be converted into phonemes and lexemes without a fight.

He has tried, he really has. As much as it pains him– actually, physically pains him– to envision himself actually sitting his husband down to utter those words, he’s aware that bottling them up until he dies is not an alternative. So he tries to find a way to say them out loud, to express them in a way that makes sense, but every time his throat closes up, his stomach clenches, and he finds himself at a loss of words.

_Cecil, I’ve been thinking–_ his brain will start formulating, watching his husband open the front door with a quick little chant and a droplet of blood on the knob.

_This might sound weird but–_ his tongue will start phrasing, brushing his teeth and looking at Cecil out of the corner of his eye, unashamedly open and unafraid to show just how interesting and utterly dear he finds him.

_I never thought of this before but–_ his mouth will start shaping, head pillowed on Cecil’s chest as they watch the hit documentary _Inception_ , his husband’s hand running through his hair in soothing, calming motions.

Unfortunately, all of those organs and apparatuses never seem to coordinate, working one at a time like an assembly line on strike, and the words actually never make it out of his head. Not only that, but there’s also a weak, vulnerable part of him that wonders deep down if Cecil will actually reciprocate his feelings, or if expressing them will make it awkward. Sure, he has always liked children, but what if that love ended there? What if he never considered having a child, never really wanted one, and Carlos suddenly springing up on him with the idea of one will ruin things? They’ve always been on the same page until now, what if Carlos is a few paragraphs ahead, or accidentally opening an entirely different book, what then?

So what he does do is grabbing Cecil, squashing the corteges of unvoiced thoughts with his lips on him– on his jaw, on his cheek, on his mouth, whichever patch of skin will be the closest– and lets himself be calmed by his husband’s familiar scent and his earthy laugh at the sudden act of affection, before he responds to it in equal measure of love, but not quite as desperate. If he ever asks himself why is it that Carlos will sometimes stare at him like his life depends on it for entire minutes at a time before embracing him, he never says.

* * *

He doesn’t say anything to Carlos.

It’s honestly ridiculous, for someone who talks for a living, but he never quite seems to be able to vocalize his thoughts whenever they manifest themselves in his brain. And boy, do they manifest.

The thoughts aren’t as surprising at first. Cecil has always liked children, and he’d be lying if he said he hasn’t envisioned himself with one of his own at least once, and Cecil also really likes Carlos, so really it’s completely logical and rational for his brain to mix and match the two images.

What’s new is the frequency with which said image will barge into his thoughts, derailing whatever semblance of normalcy they might have had. All he needs to do is be in the vague vicinity of Carlos– in bed with him, eating at the table, doing their respective tasks in their house, hell even just buying groceries– and his brain will have an almost pavlovian response to his proximity and boom, baby thoughts. He’d be tempted to half-heartedly refer to it as baby fever if it weren’t so annoyingly inconvenient.

Which begs the question: why not just tell Carlos? The man’s a scientist, if there’s anyone who might be able to rationalize and make sense of a problem as complicated as the vines of emotions twisting and unfurling in Cecil’s brain it’s probably him, why not just sit him down and talk it through?

The answer is really simple, and relies on a silent, delicate agreement Cecil and Carlos have had for six years now: Carlos always takes the first step. 

Out of the two of them, Cecil tends to be the overly exuberant one, ready to proudly announce his every feeling and thought aloud like it’s nothing, while Carlos tends to take a more measured approach, and only properly opens himself when he feels safe– though when he does, he opens himself fully, to a degree that sometimes surprises Cecil. He’s like a diesel engine in that sense, or like a cheerful cat who initially hides behind a mask of shyness. Cecil might be the one confessing his love for him live on air to hundreds of listeners, but Carlos is the one who after listening to said confession turns his car around and marches up the radio station, intrigued and curious to meet the kind of person who would just say something like that out of the blue.

He’s getting off track. Point is, they have this dance, the two of them, in which both of them seem to know where they’re heading, but Carlos is the first one to make a move for it. Carlos was the one who called him to look up at the lights above the Arby’s that first night, he was the one who asked him out first, who proposed to move in together, and who offered up the idea of getting married. They were all things Cecil had wanted for a long time, and he never had any hesitation in agreeing to them, but they were still Carlos’s own initiative.

Going against that trend, offering up an idea that might be somewhere along the path before Carlos has had the time to properly metabolize it like it’s his usual, to Cecil it feels like a misstep. And he doesn’t want to know what might happen if either of them slips.

So what he does is wait. Regardless of the complicated gymnastics his heart likes to perform whenever he thinks about having children, his life doesn’t depend on it, and he loves Carlos too much to just spring such a huge concept on him so out of the blue. Carlos already knows how much he likes children, he must know that the door’s already cracked in that regard, and if he ever decided to open it, peek inside, the knob would happily twist for him. It might not be the healthiest solution, especially considering the psychosomatic consequences the whole thing seems to be having on him, but he’ll manage for a while. The dance hasn’t failed him yet, and he’s sure it won’t.

In the meanwhile, he thinks of what might be able to gently nudge Carlos in the right direction. He might ask Steve to put the proverbial bug in his ear, maybe put in a good word for him about how much of a good father _he_ would be, and how much Carlos definitely should talk to Cecil about it before he spontaneously combusts into flames. That sounds reasonable.

* * *

It’s quite funny what breaks him in the end. 

The house is quiet when he gets back from work, and knowing the time plus who Cecil is as a person Carlos bets that he’ll find him napping somewhere, and he closes the door behind him with a happy sigh.

Sure enough, he finds his husband curled up in bed, a quilt thrown over him and up to his nose as it’s his usual, and Carlos can’t help the soft smile that takes over his face at the sight of him. Gods, he loves this man so much it’s unreal.

He silently tips off his shoes, softly padding all the way to the bed with socketed feet, and once he’s there he takes off his lab coat as well, ready to curl up next to his husband and snuggle the afternoon away, lazily and languidly. Cecil looks utterly adorable on the bed, curled up on his side, his hair ruffled from sleep and caressed by the tepid sunlight filtering through the window, illuminating the few grey hairs on the side of his head, where the blond gives space to dark brown; his mouth is half-open in a silent snore, just over the tip of the quilt; one of his arms is under the pillow, while the other is lying still on the bed, and there’s just enough space between it and his chest for Carlos to easily fit in, but for some reason, his brain decides to offer him a different image.

What he envisions in front of him is a Cecil in the exact same position, in the exact same circumstance, only that his arms aren’t empty, and there’s a baby against his chest, nuzzled in with the kind of affection and protection that he already knows Cecil is capable of. It’s ridiculously cliché, and he feels that he’ll be embarrassed by it later on when thinking back to it, but now it does something weird to his chest, and as he imagines coming back from work to his husband and child fast asleep, curling up next to them and joining them in that terribly domestic image, he doesn’t quite manage to suppress a whimper.

Cecil, as attuned to him as he is, immediately notices, and after a few seconds of confused blinking he looks up at him, smiling through the haze of sleep. Carlos smiles back, instinctively, but feels it weak on his face.

“Hey there,” his husband croaks out, his deep voice even deeper than usual, and the smile on Carlos’s face regains some of its usual strength, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Carlos replies, matching Cecil’s hushed tone. He’s not sure who it benefits, exactly, but given how sleepy Cecil looks, rapidly blinking to get rid of the blurriness in his eyes, he thinks it might be him. He’s still standing by the bed, affixed to its side and seemingly unable to move, but his husband doesn’t comment on it, and just looks up at him with unfathomable affection in his gaze.

“You were in my dreams,” he says, like it’s meant to be a secret. Carlos hums, has half an idea to explain the process of rapid eye movement sleep and dreams and how the two might relate to his presence in them, but decides against it, and just smiles. He’s fairly sure he’s already smiling, so he tries a little harder just to make a point.

“I’m also in your reality.”

“And how extraordinarily lucky of me,” Cecil grabs a corner of the quilt with his free hand, raising it up in a silent invitation, opening the cocoon he’s made himself and offering it to him, and Carlos doesn’t hesitate in accepting it.

He quietly slides in beside Cecil, curling around his body like he was always meant to be there, and he nuzzles against his throat, tucking his arms against his chest once he’s there. Cecil lowers the quilt again, making sure that it’s covering both of them, and lets his arm curl around Carlos’s back, gently pulling him closer still, until he’s not sure where one starts and the other ends. In any other circumstance, he’d find the contact oppressing, claustrophobic, but when it’s Cecil offering it he feels nothing but safe, and he doesn’t hesitate to kiss the side of his neck in a silent thank you. 

They’re creatures of touch. Humans, that is, but Cecil and Carlos more specifically.

Cecil doesn’t say anything, only hums softly in reply to the kiss, and lets his free hand travel up to the back of Carlos’s head, gently spreading his fingers through his hair. They’ve gotten particularly good at guessing each other’s mood without speaking, simply reading between the lines traced by their body language, and Cecil already knows that Carlos is overthinking something without needing to ask him. He always lets himself be hugged when he’s upset, curling his arms under his chin or over his chest and trying to chase away his fears and doubts against Cecil’s skin, and this time isn’t any different.

They don’t say anything for a while, and the room is quiet except for their breathing and the near-silent drag of Cecil’s fingers against Carlos’s hair. He would find the movement comforting, and he does, but there’s something about the familiarity with which Cecil is navigating his scalp, deftly finding the few knots he’s acquired through the day and loosening them like it’s his own hair he’s dealing with, that makes Carlos’s throat close up. This man knows and loves him more strongly than anyone he’s ever met in his life. There is absolutely no reason why he should have ever felt like he can’t just talk to him when he needs to.

“So I’ve been thinking–“ he starts, the metaphorical knot in his throat making it impossible to proceed without choking or bursting into tears. Cecil only hums, still dealing with the literal knot he’s found in his hair.

“That’s what a scientist does,” he says, untying the knot before running his hand more freely through Carlos’s hair. He shivers, doesn’t even try to fight the effect his husband’s touch has on him, and he can feel Cecil’s awed smile without even needing to see it.

“I’ve been thinking,” he repeats, more firmly. Yes, this is a good start. Subject, verb. Maybe add an object and a modifier and he might actually start making sense, “I’ve been thinking… about something that I’ve never thought about before.”

Cecil doesn’t say anything, letting him elaborate what he needs to say without pressuring him. Which he’s thankful for because he’s such an anxious mess right now he can barely make sense of his own thoughts. Cecil’s hand is still brushing through his hair, touch as gentle as a whisper as he cradles his neck, and Carlos’s line of thought is momentarily derailed when a finger escapes his hair to stroke his ear. He chuckles, scrunching his nose up against Cecil’s throat, making him feel the frown in his laugh, and Cecil lets out an airy giggle, happy to have accomplished his mission.

“Stop it, you,” he gently shakes his head, dislodging Cecil’s hand, but doesn’t move away from his touch, “Not only have I been thinking, but I’ve also been… wanting.”

Cecil hums, his hand resuming the safe route of Carlos’s hair rather than venturing in more sensitive and ticklish areas, “The things you’ve been thinking and wanting, are they the same thing?”

“Yes,” he doesn’t know how he’s managing to make sense, but Cecil seems to be following so far, so he pushes on, “Has that ever happened to you? To find yourself thinking about something you never thought about before?” he swallows, fisting Cecil’s shirt. It’s a comfy night shirt, not the ones he wears at work, so he’s safe to do so, “Wanting something you never wanted before?”

“I consider Steve Carlsberg my best friend,” his husband readily replies, shrugging one shoulder high enough to show his bewilderment with the matter, but low enough not to disturb Carlos’s curled up form on it, “It’s safe to say I never remotely thought to do that before.”

He’s going for some levity, same as before, and Carlos is glad for it. This is easy. He has no reason to feel anxious, it’s just Cecil.

“I can imagine, but I was thinking of something a bit more life-changing,” he can feel Cecil take in a breath, no doubt to say something along the lines of, _calling Steve Carlsberg, of all people, my best friend is pretty life-changing, my sweet dear Carlos_ , but he beats him on time, getting all out before he thinks twice about it, “Like a child.”

The hand in his hair stills and Carlos holds his breath. For a second all he can hear is Cecil’s pulse rushing through his veins, where his nose is still pressed, and if he focuses enough he can pinpoint the moment it stops, before starting up again, quicker than before. He has never been one to ignore the intrinsic beauty of the very cells that make up his husband, but right now the mere notion of his cardiovascular system is utterly terrifying.

Then the hand moves again, and so does Cecil, almost as if propelled by an external force. His arms tighten just a bit around Carlos, and his legs curl around Carlos’s own, pulling him even closer than before. Then he speaks, and his voice is a whisper, “You have?”

He sounds so heartbreakingly hopeful all of Carlos’s breath leaves him in one rush, and he’s suddenly much smaller than before between his husband’s arms, “I have,” he confesses, unable to hide the smile that is now splitting his face. He has a half thought that this is probably a conversation that they should have face to face, but he’s barely hanging onto his composure just hearing Cecil’s voice, he knows he’d combust into a puddle of tears if he actually saw his face, “I have, I– I have been thinking about it for _weeks_ , everything you do I imagine you doing it with a child, a tiny baby of our own, and–“ the words are rushing out of him now like a dam has broken, and he finds no reason why he should hold them back, “And you are _so_ good with children, sweetie, and you were so enthusiastic with your niecelet, and then Steve also mentioned it, and now I came here and I imagined you napping with a baby and me joining the two of you and just hugging you both because I love you so much and–“

“You–“ Cecil makes a half aborted sound, closer to a hiccup than actual vocalization, and then he’s pulling Carlos closer still, muffling whatever sound that was into his hair, “I can’t believe you– mmphf!”

“Sorry,” he mumbles against Cecil’s skin, pressed up against him more than would be entirely comfortable, but he’s not going to complain. His husband is near shaking against him, body so tense it’s bound to either do that or just snap in half like a toothpick, and he tries to soothe him by running a hand over his back, fingers brushing against the knobs of his spine, but that only makes him cling to him even tighter. This is _easy_ , and it was very extremely unscientific of him to ever assume that Cecil would be anything but enthusiastic about it, “I’m sorry, was that too much?”

“ _Was that too_ – Carlos you’re going to _kill_ me,” the same way he had clung to him, Cecil pulls away now, hands reaching up to cup Carlos’s face before stopping, fingers just sky of brushing his cheeks, “Can– can I look you in the eyes?”

He doesn’t make him ask twice, and reaches up for his hands himself, grabbing Cecil’s wrists as he cups his face, his touch incredibly gentle. He has tears in his eyes, he can feel them, but he doesn’t care for them, not when Cecil is looking at him with equally teary eyes, his face a mixture of disbelieving happiness and breathtaking hope, “Are you sure? You want a baby?”

He had imagined Cecil saying those words so, _so_ many times in the last few weeks, but actually hearing them almost makes him reel back. He actually does reel a bit, kept still only by the virtue of his hands around Cecil’s wrists, but he doesn’t let himself hide away, nodding against the surge of feelings in his chest, “Yes,” his husband visibly relaxes at that, the toothpick losing some of the crushing pressure it was under, and he searches his eyes attentively, trying to catalogue each flicker of emotion he sees– and he sees _a lot_ of them, “Do you?”

“Yes,” Cecil immediately replies, maybe a tad quicker than necessary, which makes Carlos laugh. A laugh that is soon muffled against Cecil’s mouth, too enthusiastic to really do anything more than just pressing their lips together, two messes merging into one. The laugh doesn’t stop, and only picks up its pace when Cecil starts leaving frantic little kisses everywhere he can reach, Carlos’s forehead, his nose, his mouth again, his chin, even his own hand when he misjudges the distances for a second, “Yes, my dearest Carlos, yes,” his cheekbone, his eyebrow, his eyelid– Cecil has been quite ridiculous many times throughout their relationship, but this is probably the most ridiculous he’s been in recent times, and he loves him _so_ much, “Of course I do. Oh, but I was sure you didn’t–“

“I do,” Carlos replies just as quickly. He frees Cecil’s wrists to try and pull away a little, just enough to get a proper look at him, and it’s quite the fight– neither of them wants to let go just yet, “But I was too afraid to say.”

“Oh, Carlos,” Cecil voice is fragile, exactly like Carlos had imagined it would be when he confessed that, and he instinctively reaches out, silencing that fragility kiss after kiss. The lament turns into a sigh, then a whimper, and soon Cecil is loose, the tension leaving his body in favour of malleable contentment, answering Carlos’s kisses with languid affection. When they pull apart Carlos’s limbs are weak with the effort of holding onto Cecil and he lets them relax, cradling his husband rather than clinging onto him, and lets his forehead rest against Cecil’s. A hand reaches up to brush his hair back from where it had been ruffled during their frantic kisses, and he hums in appreciation, “We should get better at talking.”

He cracks an eye open, not having realized he had closed them to begin with, and Cecil unconsciously beams when his gaze is back on him. It’s ridiculously adorable, “I’d argue we are good at talking, excellent even,” he returns Cecil’s touch by thumbing at his jaw, where he has a cute little mole he likes to make the target of his kisses. Cecil never saw it himself, being unable to look in the mirror, but he’s so used to Carlos’s kisses he could point it out with millimetric precision, “It’s just a difficult subject to breach. You know, the rest of our lives.”

“Well, lucky for you there’s nobody else I’d rather have difficult conversations over the rest of our mortal existence with,” Cecil hums, like that’s a normal thing to say, and Carlos smiles, loving him very, very much, “Speaking of talking, I thought you’d propose the idea with one of your speeches. I’m almost disappointed you didn’t.”

He’s teasing, Carlos knows. Cecil always uses a specific tone when he teases, just to make sure Carlos catches on it– he tends to take things literally, jokes and sarcasm tend to slide off of him like water on a hydrophobic surface, unable to bounce them back and keep them going, which sometimes frustrates people, but Cecil has never been one to have an issue with it– but even if he wasn’t, the tears he had shed earlier when Carlos had confessed wanting a baby with him ( _holy shit holy shit they’re having a baby_ ) are enough proof that a proper speech would have probably killed Cecil on spot.

“What speech?” he teases back, just to see what his husband will do. As expected, Cecil blushes a little, but he’s quick to recover, puffing out his chest against Carlos’s with exaggerated formality.

“Scientifically speaking,” the voice is Cecil's, but the inflexion is clearly Carlos’s, and he can’t help but smile, “Speaking from the point of view of mere facts and logic and, you know, what with science and all… I just thought that it was time for us to have a child together.”

As it’s natural, it’s now his turn to tear up, ridiculously touched by what by all means is an impression. Cecil immediately frets over it, making soft apologetic sounds, but Carlos shushes him stroking that one mole of his, “That would be–” he swallows, unable to contain his smile any longer, “That would be neat.”

Cecil’s face slips into a smile, and Carlos’s thumb ends up brushing against his bottom lip. He feels the sudden urge to kiss it, to kiss his husband, the future father of his child, and this strange, strange man that he keeps falling in love with every day, and then he realizes that he has no reason why he shouldn’t just do that so he cants his head towards him, hearing Cecil’s answering whisper of, “Neat,” before he’s being pulled closer, and they’re both quiet once again for a while. Scientifically speaking, it is very neat.

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out with me [on tumblr](https://themilanobitch.tumblr.com/). or: stand still in the middle of a busy metropolis, unmoving but not unchanging, and wait until our time and space match


End file.
